"What is the value of collecting countless testimonials?"

Adam asked this question to our cofounder Olly on X this week. It's an eyeopener of a question and one he's not alone in asking.

Once upon a time before discovering Senja, maybe you too collected a few nice sentiments, pinned them up on your website and called it a job well done.

But now, your eyes are being opened to all the ways you can use social proof to grow your brand. You know that the more shout outs, the more comments, the more buzz you collect, the more you can do with it. You see endless possibilities and you're hungry for more!

In this post, you'll find 8 fresh ways you can get more juice out of your testimonials than just letting them sit pretty on the sidelines.

This is a recap post from Senja's Open Office Hours. Every week, we dive into how to collect, manage and share testimonials so you can sell with social proof. Join us for the next one!

Top Takeaway: Always be importing social proof

When someone talks about you online, you don't just want to leave a heart emoji and move on with your day. You've got to save it in Senja!

That way you can reuse that magic moment anytime in the future when launching something new, when promoting something old, when pitching new partnerships and even when you're just feeling demotivated.

With Senja, you can import from 30+ channels, including podcast reviews, Amazon reviews, social media posts, comments and even text messages!

How to import with Senja

Step 1: Grab your social proof

You can copy a link from nearly anywhere online to import into your Senja library. Here's some of my favorites:

• Search your username on X

• Search your brand's name on LinkedIn

• Search your brand's name on Reddit

• Copy your Product Hunt launch page

• Copy your Apple Podcast show link

You can also scan your email inbox, your DMs and your text messages for love that came in privately (simply reply to that person and ask "can I use this as a testimonial" then import it into Senja once you have the ok!)

Step 2: Head to the importer!

Located near the top of your Senja dashboard, you'll find Collect->Import Testimonials and inside that glorious panel you'll see your options.

Step 3: Import your testimonial

Choose your channel from the leftside menu and drop in your link OR use the Text, Video, Image options at the top to bring in a shout out from anywhere. If you add a screenshot or a video, Senja will even transcribe it for you!

Also see: our help article on importing testimonials

Bonus: Use our Chrome extension to grab testimonials anytime

Senja's Chrome extension can be used to import comments on posts. Try this on LinkedIn: open the Chrome extension, go to a comment you want to save, hit "import" in the extension and see that Senja will pull in comment data.

You can also easily copy/paste info from a site into your extension or even send back a testimonial form or image. Download our Chrome extension to try it out!

Now, what to do with all those shout outs?!

Back to Adam's question: why even bother importing all this? Because of all the rad stuff you can do with a Senja library chock full of social proof!

Here's 8 ideas but we have SO MANY MORE so check back here, come to office hours or quiz us on X.

1) Vouching for you

Build general trust in you and your brand by collecting a wide range of feedback on what you've been up to. This comes in SUPER HANDY when you're launching something new and you don't yet have feedback on that so instead you can use feedback on your past projects.

Example we love from André Casal's Product Hunt launch page

2) Hesitation busters

Customer quotes speak to a wide range of reasons to sign up, buy, get value or stick around. You can work these various angles during promotional periods via your sales emails, social posts and ads OR you can drop in different testimonial widgets for unique customer persona landing page. Picture one page for solo founders and one page for small agencies with a curated set of testimonials on each.

Example we love from Pascio's Notion template shop

3) Boosting visibility

Testimonials can create MORE visibility for your brand, especially when you encourage word of mouth shares in your Senja forms (find this in your form settings under "Word of Mouth")

Use testimonials to drive up visibility on your show in Apple Podcast search or to get your book noticed on Amazon or just have your customers shout you out on social media after purchase and then import it right into Senja. We can feel the FOMO now!

Example we love from Omar Zenhom of $100MBA

4) Messaging bank

Senja makes it easy for you to quickly scan through the voices of your customers. You can use our built-in analyzer to pull common phrases and sentiments. You can search and tag by keyword, persona, company size, product and more.

Gathering as much intel as you can from your customers makes it faster to write more effective copy that will actually speak to your prospects. The more you collect and import, the better this messaging bank becomes!

5) Onboarding members

In today's attention economy, the selling doesn't stop once someone walks in the door. You've got to keep people engaged and coming back for you! You can use Senja when running a community, course or membership to get current members or students sharing their success tips with new ones!

Example we put together: Awesome Marketers Community

6) Easier upgrades

Want more upgrades for your subscriptions or products? Avoid sales calls by putting your testimonials to work! You can use customer love to get people sold on moving to the next tier. A few testimonials won't cut it here. The more motivators and angles you capture directly from customers, the more you can grease the wheels of your upgrades.

7) Closing proposals

Using proposals to close deals? Toss some testimonials in based on what that client, partner or collaborator needs to hear. You can either embed our widgets or make a widget and download it as an image to easily show off side by side with what you're offering. Who can say no to someone with so much success to their name!?

8) Positive feedback

Ever heard of a positive feedback folder? It's a place where you save all the kind stuff people say for those hard days when you feel like giving up. Stashing it in a Dropbox means you'll likely never see it again, but when it's in Senja, you can turn that positivity into promotion any time.

Stay motived by saving all those shout outs right inside your favorite testimonial tool.

Example we love from Allen of God and Gigs

Bonus: Ask for feature requests and act on them

Collecting feature requests can foster a deeper connection with your customers by showing that their needs and opinions are valued. It builds trust, strengthens customer engagement, and creates a collaborative environment where users feel like partners in the product or business’ growth.

We use Featurebase at Senja, but there are a number of feature request tools to help you collect this feedback and give users a great experience.

Put it all together

When you think of Senja as your homebase for ALL your word of mouth, you reap more benefits from it. You find more places to plug social proof beyond a single spot on your site. You gather more great quotes. You encourage more public shout outs. You drive visibility for your brand. Truly, you're unstoppable now!

Learn how to sell more with social proof when you come to Senja's Open Office Hours! This is a recap of one of those live sessions. Every week, we dive into how to collect, manage and share testimonials so you can sell with social proof. Join us for the next one!

Not yet using Senja? Sign up free and start collecting testimonials today.